7 Random Things About Me
You may have seen this Meme running around the blogverse. No one has tagged me, but that hasn't stopped me in the past! Let's see if I can come up with seven things you don't already know.
7 Random Things About Me:
1. My first pair of glasses, at the tender age of six, were bifocals. That eye doctor was a total quack. Those glasses with their divided lenses and big plastic frames that fit a six-year-old's head, are still somewhere in my parents' basement, I'm sure.
2. One thing that really annoys me lately is people who reminisce about the "old days." You know, how things were so much better a couple generations ago and back then children respected their elders and people dressed better and kids knew what hard work and discipline were, darn it! Please. I know we have a ways to go before we achieve real fairness and equality in this culture, but I would much rather be black, female, gay, disabled, autistic, a single parent, mentally ill, a child with special needs, or basically anything but a healthy "normal" white middle-class male now than fifty years ago. Wouldn't you?
3. That said, I'm old-fashioned about two things, and two things only: I like exchanging hand-written letters, and I cook nearly everything from scratch. I won't make cake from a mix, brownies from a box, cookies from a tube, biscuits from a can, pizza from the freezer or mashed potatoes from a packet. Yuck. The one occasional exception is Annie's organic mac and cheese from the box.
4. In a little over two weeks, I am going to California to study song accompanying with two of the world's best collaborative pianists. I am also in the first trimester of a very unexpected pregnancy, so I'm doubly nervous about several things: I have about two weeks to finish learning a pile of really hard music; once I get there I'll have approximately a day and a half to rehearse over two dozen songs with ten different singers, and that's assuming my flight arrives in Los Angeles on time; currently I can barely function after 3:00pm; I wonder if they'll trust a pianist who shows up to SongFest with a toddler; there are three composers-in-residence whose songs we are all performing and I hope they're nice and not too neurotic...I could go on, but you get the idea.
5. I have never once smoked marijuana, though not for lack of opportunity. I also believe that marijuana should be legalized, and not just for medical purposes. Totally legal.
6. We try really hard to be a green-friendly family. Among other things, we avoid using the clothes dryer whenever possible to save energy. We have a clothesline to hang laundry outside in warmer weather, and several drying racks in the basement for the winter months.
7. Like millions of others out there, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and have read all the books several times. Yet, I have not pre-ordered or reserved my copy of book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Why? Because my best friend and roommate from college is getting married on the very day that the book will be available, July 21, and we will be in rural Minnesota for her wedding. Don't think I'm going to wait until we get home to get the book, though! Once we figure out where we're staying that weekend, I'm going to order the book and have it sent to [small town], MN so I can get started as soon as the festivities are over.
7 Random Things About Me:
1. My first pair of glasses, at the tender age of six, were bifocals. That eye doctor was a total quack. Those glasses with their divided lenses and big plastic frames that fit a six-year-old's head, are still somewhere in my parents' basement, I'm sure.
2. One thing that really annoys me lately is people who reminisce about the "old days." You know, how things were so much better a couple generations ago and back then children respected their elders and people dressed better and kids knew what hard work and discipline were, darn it! Please. I know we have a ways to go before we achieve real fairness and equality in this culture, but I would much rather be black, female, gay, disabled, autistic, a single parent, mentally ill, a child with special needs, or basically anything but a healthy "normal" white middle-class male now than fifty years ago. Wouldn't you?
3. That said, I'm old-fashioned about two things, and two things only: I like exchanging hand-written letters, and I cook nearly everything from scratch. I won't make cake from a mix, brownies from a box, cookies from a tube, biscuits from a can, pizza from the freezer or mashed potatoes from a packet. Yuck. The one occasional exception is Annie's organic mac and cheese from the box.
4. In a little over two weeks, I am going to California to study song accompanying with two of the world's best collaborative pianists. I am also in the first trimester of a very unexpected pregnancy, so I'm doubly nervous about several things: I have about two weeks to finish learning a pile of really hard music; once I get there I'll have approximately a day and a half to rehearse over two dozen songs with ten different singers, and that's assuming my flight arrives in Los Angeles on time; currently I can barely function after 3:00pm; I wonder if they'll trust a pianist who shows up to SongFest with a toddler; there are three composers-in-residence whose songs we are all performing and I hope they're nice and not too neurotic...I could go on, but you get the idea.
5. I have never once smoked marijuana, though not for lack of opportunity. I also believe that marijuana should be legalized, and not just for medical purposes. Totally legal.
6. We try really hard to be a green-friendly family. Among other things, we avoid using the clothes dryer whenever possible to save energy. We have a clothesline to hang laundry outside in warmer weather, and several drying racks in the basement for the winter months.
7. Like millions of others out there, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and have read all the books several times. Yet, I have not pre-ordered or reserved my copy of book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Why? Because my best friend and roommate from college is getting married on the very day that the book will be available, July 21, and we will be in rural Minnesota for her wedding. Don't think I'm going to wait until we get home to get the book, though! Once we figure out where we're staying that weekend, I'm going to order the book and have it sent to [small town], MN so I can get started as soon as the festivities are over.
Comments
I bowed down to pressure and pre-ordered my copy of HP7. I realized that I'm taking 9 hours this summer, and will be elbow deep in English papers and sociological studies. I don't have TIME to go stand in line (darn it), so I pre-ordered it from Amazon. Maybe I'll get lucky and receive it a day early, like that kid in Kentucky a few years ago when Amazon goofed up and shipped a book too early. One can hope, anyway.
In response to your question about being black now as opposed to fifty years ago. .
It may be better for folks with autism, but it’s more complex for African Americans in my opinion. . I don’t know if we all can be put in the same camp. In 1957, we, as African Americans, could easily name many sites of U.S. injustice. This was the Achilles heel of Jim Crow. Now our struggles, while unique, are so deeply entrenched in larger issues surrounding the nature of empire, it’s more difficult to parse away blights of specific, racialized harm from the more fundamental struggle for human rights. (The government's response to Katrina is a prime example of this.) In my opinion, this creates an even more challenging struggle for African Americans, and for all of us, than fifty years ago. Where’s the good in me being able to sit at a lunch counter with whites if the diner is underwater?
Now I’m off on vacation. . enjoy Memorial day weekend!
All best with your recital prep.!!!
I just wrote this long comment and accidentally hit the "back" button and lost the whole thing! So let's see if I can remember what I said...
When I listed all those categories of people, I didn't mean to imply that, for instance, people with autism and African-Americans share the same experience. Not at all. I just meant that there has been some progress to engage people in the margins of society more than several decades ago, when they were just totally ignored or legally second-class citizens. And like I said, we have a long (long, LONG) way to go.
I can't even pretend to know what it's like to be black in America, so I won't. I do totally agree that the issues and struggles of racism, rather than being solved, have become more complex in the last couple of generations. I think in a very general way, feminism is going through the same thing. We're grappling with issues of inequality that are difficult to articulate because the law says we are equal citizens, even if reality is much different.
Hope that helps!
I've been thinking that the stats on infant mortality, while sad for minorities in the U.S., may have marginally improved, though not at the rate of whites. . am unsure. . so they may not be the best indicator of regression. . . ahh. . . this is what happens when I talk to too many sociologists!
It's always good conversing humanely about subjects like this. The hope is that our work (your greener house, for example) leads to the tides that lift all boats.
Her mother